2029 – two old bridges and the lost coast path between Iviron and Lavra

In post 1617 my brother Herman payed attention to the old path that connected the monasteries Iviron and Lavra before the dirt road was build, probably just before 1968, when Athos celebrated its 1000th anniversary.  The old kalderimi path is almost totally destroyed, only small parts remain, especially near the few bridges that are still in situ.

The location of the two bridges

Together with monk T from Simonopetra monastery we tried to find a few of these remnants of the path, that led over a couple of typical Athos bridges. The first bridge is in a small bay between arsanas of Filotheou and Karakallou. The bay has no name, according to the Howorth pilgrim map.

The location of the first bridge 
The first bridge between arsanas Filotheou and Karakallou, seen from the dirt road

You have climb down to take a closer look:

The bridge, looking to to West, seen from the beach
The bridge, looking to the East/the sea
Standing on the bridge

No parts of the old path remains here. Near the beach the old walls of some houses are to seen:

Google Earth show us the remnants of ol houses 

The next bridge is in the so called Megálos Velás valley, located not far from Lavra.

The Megálos Velás bridge (from the Howorth map)
A small road, accessible to cars, leads to this bridge. Turquoise and dark blue seas welcome you.
Looking at the other direction: Megálos Velás river
The Megálos Velás valley
Goolle maps show the walls of a ruined large boathouse (?) and a chapel
The ruins of a large building
The chapel
The chapel next to the ruined building
The Megálos Velás bridge
The chapel seen from the bridge, with a ruined house above it
The beach seen from the bridge
The bridge seen from the beach
The ruined house

I tried to go up to have a closer look at the house, and then a found a part of the old coast path, but the path was overgrown and the house was
inaccesable.

The beginning of the old path
The old path

This is as far I could go on the old path, to try to get to the ruined house. Maybe this a new task for the FoMA foothpath group, to clear this part of the old hiking route (although it is only a very short part of the disappeared monopati)? 

Wim Voogd, 2-12-2018

This entry was posted in Trip 2018, walking and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

2 Responses to 2029 – two old bridges and the lost coast path between Iviron and Lavra

  1. Thank you for all your hard work and sharing this.

  2. japetusgr says:

    Between these two beautiful stonebridges and quite close to the first one, there is yet another stone bridge at arsanas of Ag.Artemios from where the original path to Lavra used to cross.

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